One interesting example: learning Chinese characters. Different people do it differently.

I have mild aphantasia, and I initially tried the approach of memorizing the shapes and/or associating the shapes with easy-to-remember pictures ( https://www.chineasy.com/ uses this approach). Some of my classmates could do that easily, but it didn't work for me.

Instead, I started memorizing the characters as a series of hand movements. Essentially "serializing" the picture into a series of strokes, and that I can remember easily. I can also "render" them in my mind's eye on demand.